MEMORY OF THE MIRACLE IN LAKE PLACID LIVES ON, JALEN IS AS VALUABLE AS THEY GET & RED SOX GIVING UP …

Once more this week, 44 years later, it was a Friday night in Lake Placid, at a little Olympic arena on Main Street, when a bunch of American hockey kids coached by Herb Brooks played the most famous game any team has ever played in this country, in any sport.

I was lucky enough to be there, covering it for this newspaper.

I was there to see Michael Eruzione put one behind a backup goalie named Vladimir Myshkin with 10 minutes left in that game, straight up, and I promise you that after that it was as if those 10 minutes took 10 years to play out.

It was all ridiculously exciting, as what became known as the Miracle on Ice played out, as Brooks’ kids kept skating with what had been the best hockey team in the world — kept out-skating them really — as Jim Craig refused to let the Soviets put another puck behind him.

And then — and even though those of us in the arena wouldn’t find out until later — the great Al Michaels made the greatest sports call of them all, asking the whole world if it believed in miracles.

Later on, when it was over, and my column had been written, I walked around the streets of Lake Placid, with snow falling, the whole town like a movie set, and watched as groups of Americans stopped on street corners and outside bars and began to sing “God Bless America.”

I have been lucky enough to have a ringside seat at so many unforgettable sports moments from the time I first began writing a column for the Daily News.

Never a night like that. l I keep thinking that if I turn on my television, Tony Romo will still be walking all over Jim Nantz’s call at the end of the Super Bowl.

l It’s always tons of fun for sports fans when they hear the people in charge of their team talking about a season other than the one their team is about to play.

Hey, we’re talking about you, Uncle Steve.

l Tell me which player in the NBA has been more valuable to his team than Jalen Brunson has been to the Knicks.

l I compared the NBA AllStar Game to flag football at the Pro Bowl the other day, and I’d like to apologize to flag football.

Compared to what we witnessed in Indianapolis last

Sunday night, baseball’s AllStar Game is like church.

l Just putting on pinstripes doesn’t change how badly Alex Verdugo behaved in Boston last season.

And how happy Alex Cora was to see him go.

Incidentally: The Red Sox, as an organization, now look like the biggest give-up job in all of baseball.

They’ve got an owner in John Henry who seems far more interested in his Liverpool soccer team and his investment in pro golf than he does the Sox.

Who are starting to make 2018 seem like as distant a memory as 1918 once was.